The Tenant of Wildfell Hall

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Wordsworth Editions, 1996 - 394 páginas

With an Introduction and Notes by Peter Merchant, Canterbury Christchurch University College

The Tenant of Wildfell Hall is a powerful and sometimes violent novel of expectation, love, oppression, sin, religion and betrayal. It portrays the disintegration of the marriage of Helen Huntingdon, the mysterious 'tenant' of the title, and her dissolute, alcoholic husband. Defying convention, Helen leaves her husband to protect their young son from his father's influence, and earns her own living as an artist. Whilst in hiding at Wildfell Hall, she encounters Gilbert Markham, who falls in love with her.

On its first publication in 1848, Anne Brontë's second novel was criticised for being 'coarse' and 'brutal'. The Tenant of Wildfell Hall challenges the social conventions of the early nineteenth century in a strong defence of women's rights in the face of psychological abuse from their husbands.

Anne Brontë's style is bold, naturalistic and passionate, and this novel, which her sister Charlotte considered 'an entire mistake', has earned Anne a position in English literature in her own right, not just as the youngest member of the Brontë family.

This newly reset text is taken from a copy of the 1848 second edition in the Library of the Brontë Parsonage Museum and has been edited to correct known errors in that edition.

 

Páginas seleccionadas

Contenido

To J Halford
7
A Discovery
9
An Interview
17
A Controversy IX
22
The Studio
36
Progression
40
The Excursion
46
The Present
56
The Miniature
119
Further Intelligence
338
The Rain Descended
343
Doubts and Disappointments
351
An Unexpected Occurrence
359
Fluctuations
367
Conclusion
373
NOTES
385

A Snake in the Grass
60
A Contract and a Quarrel
70
The Vicar Again
74
A TêteàTête and a Discovery
78
A Return to Duty
86
An Assault
90
An Encounter and its Consequences
96
The Warnings of Experience
102
Further Warnings
112
22
386
40
387
46
388
60
389
78
390
96
391
112
392
119
393

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Acerca del autor (1996)

Anne Bronte was the daughter of an impoverished clergyman of Haworth in Yorkshire, England. Considered by many critics as the least talented of the Bronte sisters, Anne wrote two novels. Agnes Grey (1847) is the story of a governess, and The Tenant of Wildfell Hall (1848), is a tale of the evils of drink and profligacy. Her acquaintance with the sin and wickedness shown in her novels was so astounding that Charlotte Bronte saw fit to explain in a preface that the source of her sister's knowledge of evil was their brother Branwell's dissolute ways. A habitue of drink and drugs, he finally became an addict. Anne Bronte's other notable work is her Complete Poems. Anne Bronte died in 1849.

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